Elementary
by Thomas Tom Tom
Summary: Katie Holmes' boring but entirely normal life as a USAF ground controller gets turned upside down when the eight pilots of Seeker Squadron move into her flat. G1/Prime ish. Shattered Glass. Starscream/Slipstream. Megatron/Thunderblast.
1. Bloody Brilliant

**A/N: I really wanted to put this up, but completely forgot. Oh well. It's something I've been wanting to write for a while but didn't get the chance to.**

**If you can both name all the members of Seeker Squadron and then tell me which cartoon Sky references, I will give you all the internet cookies in the world.**

**I'll shut up now so you, dear reader, can begin.**

**If you likey, review. If you don't likey, review anyway. Ta ta!**

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**Bloody Brilliant**

The letter was incredibly frustrating.

There it was, sitting beside its buff-coloured envelope on her desk, positively _mocking _her.

Katie Holmes, to say the least, was not pleased. She blew a strand of long brown hair out of her eyes exasperatedly and re-read the letter.

**Ground Controller Ms Holmes K.**_, _it began.

_It has recently come to our attention that your assigned _**10-man**_ living space in _**Fort Bliss Air Base**_ is_** under-occupied**_. For this reason, it has been arranged that the _**eight pilots**_ of _**Seeker Squadron**_ will be moved into _**apartment 221-B**_ and remain there for _**the****duration of their posting**_ at _**Fort Bliss Air Base**_. They will be arriving at _**9:00**_ on _**Tuesday 14****th**** July**._ The United States Air Force thanks you in advance for your co-operation._

Katie didn't even bother to read the "yours respectfully" part. Firstly, she was very annoyed that she would have to share her barracks space with eight pilots anyway. She had _specifically _requested to be placed by herself for the precise reason that she didn't like people in general. And the fact she couldn't even argue with the top brass anyway didn't help.

Secondly, she was kind of insulted that they hadn't even bothered to write out an actual letter, just using a fill-in-the-blanks one as the random bits of bold type told all too clearly.

"Just bloody brilliant." she complained aloud, her Irish lilt coming out as it often did when she was frustrated.

The brunette looked at her clock angrily. It was already ten past nine, and these pilots weren't even polite enough to show up on-

Her doorbell rang, interrupting her silent rage-filled rant. Katie dragged herself off her chair, navigated past the clutter in the room – which went from copies of _AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER MONTHLY _to a green hat covered in shamrocks hiding a stash of genuine Irish whiskey – and shoved the door of flat 221B open. Katie pulled herself down the two flights of stairs to the front door, dragging her feet as much as possible – if this "Seeker Squadron" was going to be late then she was sure as hell going to make them wait outside as long as she could. She opened the door scowling, then was so surprised by what she saw that she stumbled backwards and literally fell on her arse.

The seven men and one woman looking like they'd just stepped off the set of _Top Gun _and into real life stared at her sitting on the doormat, before one of the men (one with scruffy black hair – and a few random purple highlights in said hair – wearing a black flight suit with _more _purple accents on it) let out a snort of laughter. "Best reaction ever." he said, smirking.

One of the others, with a blue flight suit and pretty much blue hair (_God, what was this, Hipster Brigade?_, Katie thought to herself) sighed and helped Katie to her feet. "Ignore Sky. I assume you're Ground Controller Holmes?"

Katie nodded dumbly.

"That's good. I thought for a second we were at the wrong place. This _is _221B, right?" the blue one continued.

Katie nodded again.

The blue one paused. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"Oh, I do really. You're just, ah, surprising. Not to mention _late." _Katie replied, some of her surprise wearing off to be replaced with irritation again. "Oh well. Come in, and maybe introduce yourselves?"

The eight pilots shrugged almost in unison. "Fine." one of them said dismissively. He was standing quite regally, and his red, white and blue flight suit had _epaulettes, _for God's sake_. _His red (actually _red_) hair was stupidly good-looking and had, unsurprisingly, white and blue streaks through it.

Katie led the Seeker Squadron up her stairs and into the largeish apartment that was 221B, where they surveyed the room – and its assorted random crap – critically before deciding they liked it. They especially seemed interested in the Irish flag hanging on Katie's bedroom door. The black and purple one – "Sky," or something – immediately jumped into Katie's only and consequently favourite armchair and kicked his feet up on its arms. The rest arranged themselves around the living room.

"So. Who are you lot?" Katie asked, sitting down on her dilapidated sofa and crossing her arms.

The epaulette-ed one sniffed. "I am Scott. Captain Scott Shedden. And I'm the wing leader."

"Oh be nice, _Scotty_." Sky said. "Sky Watson's the name, sugar."

"Is Sky not a girl's name?" Katie asked, amusement leaking through her annoyance.

Sky huffed. "Of course not. Sky is an incredibly manly name. I'm pretty sure the prince of somewhere was called Sky in some TV show I once watched sometime."

The blue one waved distractedly from where he was fiddling with Katie's desk lamp, interrupting Sky's rant. "Tom Cranton. You can just call me TC if you want, Ms Holmes."

"I'd prefer Katie, if you don't mind, TC." Katie stated. "_Ms Holmes _makes me feel like I need a deerstalker hat and a pipe."

A man in a gold flight suit with scarily golden blonde hair took Katie's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Sam Storm. I admire your kindness in taking us in, I really do."

Katie pulled her hand away as politely as she could and turned to the next one. He was clad in a white flight suit, and his had black accents. His hair was the same, black with large white streaks.

"Rob Jessop. Uh, I'm not with them." he said, looking left and right suspiciously.

"He's a liar. Don't listen to him." TC told Katie, over Rob's shout of "I am NOT!"

The sixth member was wearing a dark maroon-y flight suit (Katie really wondered whether this lot _owned _anything but flight suits), and as Katie had come to expect, his hair was dyed the same colour. "Tim Hirst." he said, squaring his shoulders aggressively. The man standing next to him rolled his eyes and elbowed Tim. "You can't fight the hostess, you moron. I'm Dirk Gently, by the way."

Katie raised her eyebrows. "Uh...ever heard of Douglas Adams?"

Dirk shook his head, a blank expression on his face. "Can't say I have. Sorry."

"Stop apologising, Dir." the only female member of Katie's new housemates said, lifting the Shamrock Hat curiously. "I'm Cindy Strennan. Friends call me Slip, because I'm good at getting out of awkward situations. You get the idea." She brushed at a lock of short purple and teal hair (her fringe cut diagonally across her face), kicked Sky's feet off the arm of the solitary chair, and perched herself on it. "So, we got rooms or anything?"

* * *

The three spare bedrooms were divided up among the pilots with remarkable speed. Scott, Sky and TC got one, Sam, Rob, Dirk, and Tim got another, and Cindy got the last one because she was "both a chick and completely homicidal", as Sky informed Katie.

Well, that was nice to know. All Katie could draw from the half-an-hour or so that she'd spent in the Squadron's presence was that Scott was cold and aloof and basically a dodgy bastard; TC was polite enough but didn't really want to talk to her; Sam was constantly complimenting _everybody_; Rob was a liar; Tim wanted to fight with literally everyone but backed off if any real resistance was put up; Dirk was apologetic and scared of getting hurt; Cindy was snarky and sarcastic and could somehow command Scott telepathically; and finally, Sky wouldn't stop hitting on her and kept appearing out of nowhere.

Oh, this was just absolutely _bloody brilliant._


	2. Plane Crazy

**A/N: Firstly, I'd like to state that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the United States Air Force and/or their chain of command. I just know a lot about jets. Which makes this so much fun to write.**

**The Top Gun references will never end, I'm afraid. Neither will the Starscream's Cookies references.**

**Wow! Well done, missmoney101. Although guessing the Seekers was fairly easy, I didn't think anyone would get the Winx Club reference.**

**I'm not actually sure whether this is going to be a full-on humanisation or just a holoforms-only kind of deal. Just to warn you.  
Actually, it probably will be full on humanisation. **

**I picked jets for the Seekers. Yeah, I know they're all supposed to be F-15C Eagles, but I honestly don't think that they'd all pick an F-15. They're all different, and their aircraft reflect that. (Also, Thrust and Ramjet's G1 vehicle modes do not exist, so that kind of made it hard to have them fly those.) You can, if you like, look them up on Google images for a better idea of what they look like.**

**No, I'm not using the TFA personalities for the Seekers especially. I am for Ramjet and Sunstorm, but the rest are mainly G1 or (in the case of Slipstream and Thundercracker) Aligned.**

**Keep on reviewing, please! It's encouraging to see so much interest just based on one chapter. **

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**Plane Crazy**

Katie woke up slowly, not to the sound of her alarm, but to the tune of "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin echoing silkily through apartment 221B and the unfamiliar smell of fresh biscuits.

Cookies? The _hell_?

She sat up rigidly, looked around suspiciously, then decided she had better get up and find out where the biscuits were. Katie kicked her duvet off and retrieved her technically-off-work-but-still-liable-to-be-called-up-at-any-moment clothes (a blue polo shirt and loose black trousers).

When she had dressed, the song currently playing though her house was "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins. Katie pushed open the door to her room yawning and then practically swallowed her yawn when the scene that was seven hipster-hair-dyed pilots in their flight suits – rolled down to their waist, showing _colour-coordinated _t-shirts – reading all her old copies of _AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER MONTHLY _and commenting on the planes while eating _cookies _laying on a plastic tupperware plate (definitely not hers, thank God). There was a small bag set on the counter labelled "STAR'S COOKIE STUFF – NO TOUCHY, SKY", which Katie assumed contained the ingredients for said cookies.

"Oh, heya there, Katie." Sky waved, noticing her and looking up from his personal copy of _ATCM_. "Want a cookie?"

Katie sort of stood there, her mouth slightly open and her eyes flicking around the room, before she shrugged and nodded mutely. Sky picked a biscuit from the tupperware plate and threw it underarm to her. Katie caught the oddly jet-shaped cookie, juggled it a few times due to the unexpected heat, then blew on it hurriedly and took a bite.

Jesus, but pilots were _damn _good at making cookies.

"Who the hell made this? It's like eating crunchy clouds!" Katie asked between mouthfuls.

TC let out a short cough of what could possibly have been laughter. "Scott. He's the only one who even knows how to cook _anything._" he revealed, before returning to his reading.

"Actually, I know how to make toast." Rob interjected.

"Rob, the last time you made toast, the barracks went on fire." Dirk pointed out. "Never again."

"I never said I could make toast." Rob claimed, before Tim shoved a cookie in his mouth to make him shut up.

"So where's Cindy?" Katie asked.

The whole room winced. "Asleep. Word of advice, don't try and wake Slip up before she's ready, unless it's for a mission or the place is on fire." Sky explained. "She will quite literally rip off your head and _spit _down your throat."

There were a few murmurs of "true that" interrupted by Rob musing "Well, she's never done that to me."

"What are you even talking about, Rob? She punched you in the face last week!" Dirk asked.

"No she didn't!"

"Uh, she did."

"I never said she didn't."

"Someone shove another cookie in his mouth."

Tim obliged. Sky stretched out on the (_KATIE'S_) armchair and pointed to a picture of an F-22 Raptor fighter jet in one of the magazines. "Hey, Scotty? Why don't you upgrade your crappy little biplane to a real machine, like that?"

The pilots sniggered in unison and Scott looked annoyed. "It is _not _a biplane. It's a highly tuned instrument of destruction."

"Sorry, what?" Katie asked, sitting down on the already crowded sofa next to Sam and eating the rest of her plane-shaped cookie.

"Oh, it's nothing." Sky responded. "Just the fact that fearless leader here flies an absolute piece of trash instead of something good."

"I fly an F-15 Eagle!" Scott retorted hotly.

"Yeeeeaaaah, not really. You fly an F-15 _Active. _Not the same." Sky teased. "I mean, first off there's the teeny baby wings at the front." The black-and-purple haired man flapped his hands in imitation.

The pilots – bar Scott – all laughed.

"So you get to pick your _own_ jets?" Katie queried, trying to find out more about her new housemates.

"Of course we do." TC replied slightly smugly. "We're the best."

"So what do you fly?"

"Sam and Sky here both fly F-15C Eagles. _Real _Eagles." TC said, throwing a glance at Scott. "I fly a MiG-25 Foxbat – top speed of Mach 3, fastest fighter aircraft in the world – and Scott flies his little trainer plane-"

"It is _an F-15!_ It is _not _a trainer plane!"

Dirk shook his head. "No, it really is. Anyway," he said, picking up from TC, "I fly a Saab Viggen, because they're nice and safe and don't explode in your face-"

"Ha! Tell that to the ground crew on, what, literally every mission ever? Dir, you just _can't_ fly anything without getting holes the size of Scott's ego in your wings." Tim interjected. "And there was that time over Carbombya, you know, the time when you crashed into the giant purple grif–mmmmf!"

He was silenced when Dirk clapped a hand over his mouth. "_Anyway, _Rob's a moron and flies a Mirage 2000C...uh, Tim flies a Yak-141 because he's mad...and Slip flies this old YF-17 thing that's completely outdated by the Hornet."

A hushed silence descended upon the room.

"Dirk...you are _so, so _lucky that Slip's sleeping." Sky whispered.

"Hm?" said the woman in question, emerging from her bedroom with bleary eyes and her hair sticking up on end.

"Slip! Hey! You look beautiful. How'd you sleep? Personally, I slept fantastically. You have brilliantly soft beds, Katie." Sam jumped in.

"Uhh...sure." Cindy mumbled, then flicked her hair up. "Oh, Star's cookies. Nice."

She lackadaisically wandered over and plucked a few cookies from the plate before collapsing next to Katie on the sofa.

"Question. Who's 'Star?'" Katie asked.

"Star's Scott." Sam explained. "We call him it because he's so brilliant and high up like a star."

"That's crap. We call him Star because he got covered in glitter in flight school and because it's the first half of his callsign." Sky scoffed.

"Callsign?" Katie asked.

"Yeah, callsign. You're an ATC, you should know. You know, when you're flying, it's the name you're called by and answer to. So for Scotty it's 'Starscream.'"

"Starscream?" Katie repeated, raising an eyebrow. "So then what's yours? 'Skyguy'?"

Sky snorted. "No. It's Sky_warp_."

"That's not much better, to be honest."

"At least it's cooler than _Dirge." _

Katie laughed. "_Who_ is called _Dirge?" _

Dirk raised a hand apologetically and Katie's eyes widened momentarily. "Oh. Shite. Sorry."

Dirk smiled a bit. "I don't mind. Dirge is better than _Ramjet._"

"Ramjet is an awful name." Sky agreed. "Don't you think, Rob?"

Rob huffed. "I'm not answering that. Just because I _didn't _crash into that Sukhoi that one time, you never stopped calling me that."

Sky suddenly snapped his fingers. "TC! I forgot about you! Come on, _Thundercracker, _you got anything to add?"

TC looked at Sky despairingly. "Thundercracker is a perfectly reasonable callsign, because it draws attention to the sonic boom that occurs when I push the throttle up and leave you losers standing. It's cool. Unlike Sunstorm, which just sounds like a New Age band."

"Well, I think Sunstorm sounds scary." Sam reasoned. "After all, if there was a storm of sun, it'd probably burn the whole planet up."

"Slipstream at least is a thing jets do." Cindy pointed out. "My callsign is completely fine."

No-one commented on that.

Katie scratched her head. "If I had a callsign, it'd be Dreadwing. Or maybe Skyquake."

The Seekers were silent for a few seconds.

"Oh, she's going to fit in great." Tim sighed.


	3. Routinely Disorganised

**A/N: Yay, a third chapter and the beginnings of an actual plot! Don't worry though, there will be little plot and mostly amusement in this story. **

**Anyone want to comment on how well I pulled off soldier talk in this chapter? I think I did pretty well, to be honest.**

**That's it for now. This story might take a back seat as I've gotten a bunch of ideas for Echo (another one of my stories; you should read it, yeeesss) recently and'll probably be working on that for a bit.**

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**Routinely Disorganised**

A week after the Seekers arrived, things in flat 221B had settled down into a sort-of sedate routine: Katie would wake up – the Seekers (excepting Cindy) would already be up and about; they would eat whatever breakfast was available, usually toast (_not _made by Rob, thank God) and whatever conserve could be found or bought beforehand (Scott and Tim were strawberry jam men through and through; TC and Cindy had a strange fascination with Katie's mum's homemade (and mailed from Ireland to the States) bramble jam; Sam only ever had lemon curd, although he said "everything else is delicious too"; Dirk had blueberry(?!)jam _and _marmalade; and finally Sky smuggled his precious Marmite in despite Katie's repeated declarations that she did not want that bloody travesty of a spread anywhere within a hundred miles of her.

Next, Katie would go out to the Tower if it was one of her working days (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday), and by then Cindy would be awake and arguing with the boys. Soon after the customary mocking of Scott's F-15 Active the Seekers would presumably get bored of verbal sparring and go out to their hangars, climb into their planes, and then practice aerial manoeuvres until dinnertime (apparently they had lunch in their planes, which Katie figured would make a dreadful mess) when either Scott or Katie or occasionally Sky would make some kind of food – Scott could literally only make cookies and ravioli for some reason, and Sky made steak dinners when he wanted something from either Katie or Cindy, who obliged him for the sole reason that Sky's steak dinners were bloody _amazing_ – while the rest "helped" on a rotational basis. Cindy was best at "helping", but no _kitchen _jokes were made unless the perpetrator (read: Sky) wanted to either sustain third degree burns or lose a rib.

They would all watch either the news (there was some sort of trouble in Brazil; a nationalist government with designs on the rest of South America had come to power, and it looked like the US would get dragged into it somehow. The Seekers were enthusiastic at the prospect of some action; Katie was less so) or old reruns of Sherlock – in which Katie was expected to have some sort of sixth sense being both called Holmes and being from the UK – over dinner while TC read his Tom Clancy novels.

Therefore, at this point, Katie had gotten living with the Seekers down to an art. So, for example, if, as was the case now, a black F-15C Eagle with purple accents came screaming out of nowhere to buzz the control tower, instead of falling out of her chair in shock like the rest of Ground Control, Katie calmly flicked on her radio.

"Callsign Skywarp, this is Control, over."

"Roger Control, what can I do you for, sweetness? Over."

"If you don't stop buzzing the control tower, I'm locking you in Slip's room armed with only a pencil. Over."

"Say, have you done something to your hair, KT? You look much prettier than normal, over."

"Is your name Sunstorm or Skywarp? Stop it. Over."

"Woah. Right away, Control. Skywarp out."

Suffice is it to say Katie was used to this kind of thing. After Skywarp had flown back into formation with his wing, she leaned back in her chair and swivelled it left and right with her toes a little. The ground controller who sat just across from Katie, a straight-talking "Southern gal" who went by AJ, got up off the floor and whistled. "Tarnation, sugarcube. How in the hell didja get the Seekas all wrapped aroun' your finger like that? Ev'n their AWACS handl'r can't control 'em like that."

"It's fairly simple when you learn how to deal with them." Katie replied. "You just have to be all professional and militaristic with Starscream, shoot Skywarp's flirting down quickly before he gets going, stand up to Thrust's aggression, do the opposite of whatever Ramjet says, just run with Sunstorm, be nice to Dirge, and I usually agree with Slipstream so that's fine. Thundercracker is the best behaved of all of them."

"Ground Control, I'm about to take off on Runway 4, over." Ramjet suddenly announced.

"Roger that, Ramjet. Control out." Katie answered, then switched to the loudspeakers over the whole airfield. "Clear Runway 4 for an aircraft landing."

She turned to AJ. "See? Easy."

A large contact suddenly appeared on Katie's radar screen. "Ground Control, this is Seeker One-One. How copy, over?" Starscream said over the radio.

"One-One, Lima Charlie, over." Katie replied. She could see the faint shapes of a red, white, and blue F-15 Active and a dark blue MiG-25 flanking a big AWACS aircraft. There was smoke and flame belching out from the AWACS plane's engines.

"Be advised, our AWACS plane callsign Rainmaker has engine trouble and is coming in for an emergency landing. Myself and Seeker Two-One are escorting, over."

"Copy One-One. Clearing Runway 6 now. Cleared for emergency landing. Interrogative: how did Rainmaker sustain engine trouble, over?" Katie asked, making the necessary arrangements.

"Control, this is Thundercracker. We were engaged by three unidentified bandits over neutral airspace. Managed to splash the bandits, but Rainmaker took a hit, over."

"Understood, Thundercracker, over. Rainmaker, this is Control, do you copy, over?" Katie asked, switching frequencies.

"This is Rainmaker!" a man's voice said, the sound of a fire in the background. "We've taken damage, but we're holding it together for now, Control, over!"

"Rainmaker, you have emergency landing clearance on Runway 6. Recovery teams are already Oscar Mike, over."

"Copy that, Control. Tell Seeker Flight thanks for the assist, but we're good from here, over."

"Roger. Control out, Rainmaker." Katie finished, then switched back to Seeker frequency. "Seeker Flight, peel off. You have landing clearance on Runway 4. The rest of your squadron is already wheels down. Control over and out."

"Looks like Rainmaker's down for the count." AJ commented. "Wonder what poor sucker they'll assign 'em next?"

Naturally, as soon as Katie got home, there was _another _buff-coloured envelope on her doormat.

* * *

**Let's face it, we all know who's going to be the Seekers' new AWACS. Anyone want to put forward ideas for a callsign? **


	4. Sky is Best Fake Boyfriend

**A/N: YUS! I have done story!**

**Spot the Sherlock references, and there are like six. :D**

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**Sky is Best Fake Boyfriend**

Katie woke up the next morning, sat up, and promptly remembered what day it was and slumped back down into the covers. Today was the day that, two days ago, she had agreed that her mother would be coming over for Mother's Day.

She really, really didn't want to see her mother. It wasn't that she didn't _like _her mother – quite the contrary, she loved her mother – but her mother was an old Catholic-school Irishwoman, and she would _not_ react well to finding Katie rooming with seven men. At all.

_Plus_ she'd gotten that letter from the higher-ups _promoting _her (i.e. saddling her with permanent Seeker babysitting) to AWACS. Which was just _super, _in her opini—hang on, what was this?

"...I still say we should tell her." Sky was saying.

"No. You know why we can't. Megatron's orders." TC reminded him.

"But still! She's going to find out eventually. We're _living in the same house_, for spark's sake!"

"Skywarp. Control yourself." Scott cut across him. "We are _not _telling her."

Katie heard Scott sigh the sigh of the long-suffering. "I _know _that you feel bad about stringing her along like this, but you know the danger. We can't let her come to any har-"

"And living with us _isn't_ putting her in danger? If Goldbug catches wind of us, she'll be tagged and bagged before we can blink." Sky countered.

Slip walked past Katie's door and peeked in. "Hi, Katie!" she said loudly, and the three boys in the other room shut up.

"Ugh, Slip. Not so loud." Katie whined, pretending to be just awake. She decided to forget about the Seekers' secret, having been in the Air Force long enough to know that some things were classified and best left well alone.

Slip sniggered and shut the door.

* * *

When Katie had gotten herself dressed and sort-of presentable she dragged herself through to the living room.

The eight Seekers were already all there. Of course they were.

And it was half past twelve. The doorbell rang, and Katie's apartment intercom sparked into life. "Hello there, Katie?" her mother's voice said.

"SHITE!" Katie almost screamed. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Oh god."

"Katie? What's the problem?" Sky asked.

"My bloody mum is the bloody problem, Sky!" Katie snapped at him, pushing Sam, Scott and TC down the hall and into the shower. She then repeated this with Dirk and Tim and Rob, before locking the shower from the outside.

Katie almost felt sorry for their adorable confused faces, but self-preservation in the eyes of her mother came first. She grabbed Sky by the shoulder and walked him over to the (empty – she was _so _overdue on a shopping trip) fridge. Sky's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she pulled the wire shelves out and then he yelped as she shoved him into the fridge and shut the door.

She duck-taped the door shut for good measure.

When Katie stomped past towards the door Slip just sat in her chair looking a little shell-shocked.

She sniffed and raised her eyebrows. "Okay then."

Katie came back up the stairs with a black-haired (with a streak of grey) 60ish version of herself, wearing a navy blue trench coat and a wispy scarf.

"Well, Katie! You're certainly doing well for yourself, so you are." she said appreciatively, casting her eyes around the living room (Katie had threatened the Seekers with death and eternal torment if they didn't help her tidy). "Very homey. And who's this?" she said, gesturing to Slip.

"Uh, this is Slip, my roommate. Mum, Slip. Slip, Mum." Katie answered, making please-god-Slip-just-play-along faces behind her mother's back.

"Hi." Slip said. "Oh, and Katie, I was just about to tell you, I fixed the bed."

Katie breathed a silent sigh of relief then choked it all back in again at her mother's next comment.

"You broke the bed? Well, for sure Katie's always been a bit of an odd lass, but I didn't peg her for lesbianism, I did not."

"MUM! I am not_ sleeping_ with Slip! Oh my _god!" _Katie yelled.

"Never invoke the Lord's Name without reason, Katie." Katie's Mum chided.

"That wasn't without reason! You just _assumed_ I'm a lesbian, Mum, right in front of my roommate!"

"Well, do you have a boyfriend?" her mother asked.

"Uhm...Actually, yes I do!" Katie replied triumphantly. "He's just in the kitchen. One minute."

She strode off confidently towards the kitchen and therby the fridge. She ripped the duck tape off and Sky burst out of the fridge, shivering.

"W-w-what in the name of the A-a-a-a-allsp-p-park was th-th-that for?" Sky chittered.

"Sorry! Okay! Sorry. But I need you to bear with me a second." Kate apologised, then dragged Sky (who seemed to have mysteriously become completely dry and warm again) through to the living room. "Mum, this is Sky. He's my boyfriend."

"I am?" Sky exclaimed.

"You are." Slip confirmed.

"I am." Sky nodded.

"Well hello there young man." Katie's Mum said grandly.

"Sky Watson, Mrs Holmes." Sky introduced himself, putting out his hand.

"A Watson? My husband used to work with a John Watson. Not a relation of yours, I don't suppose? And please, Sky, call me Irene."

"Irene it is then."

"So, how long have you been courting my daughter?" Irene asked interestedly.

"Ah, about a month now." Sky responded. "Met her at one of the functions the base has. Just sort of snowballed, to be honest."

"How romantic." Irene replied dryly.

"Not really. Took me ages to actually ask her out, you know." Sky 'admitted'. "She's pretty amazing, really."

"So what do you do, Sky?"

"Uh, I fly jets."

Slip nodded. "This is Sky. He flies _jets._" she said in a mock-impressed tone.

Irene laughed. "Oh, dear. Is that all?"

"No, I've heard Sky also has experience in driving _cars._" Slip continued.

"Ugh, Slip. Do you ever stop?!" Sky gesticulated. "Ever?!"

"So you both know each other?" Irene asked.

"We fly. Occasionally." Sky answered.

Slip took a drink of something, licked her lips, and then casually said, "Also, I'm dating his brother."

"KNEW IT!" Sky whooped, fist-pumping. "TC owes me a repaint!"

Katie rolled her eyes. "Okay, Mum. Stop tormenting my friends, let's go! I swear I told you I'd take you to a glammy restaurant or something!" she blustered, "helping" her mother out of apartment 221B.

"Oh, Katie. Calm down, I'm going." Irene smiled good-naturedly. "Very good to meet you, Sky, Slip."

Sky and Slip waved until Irene was out of sight, then both looked at each other.

"Should we let the guys out of the shower block?" Sky asked.

Slip sniffed and shrugged. "Eh, give it a couple of hours. Personally I've always wanted to see what happens when you shove Sun and Dir in an enclosed space."

Sky laughed. "Whatever, but remember Sounders called us back to base tonight. We better not let Katie see us, she'd freak."

"You worry too much, 'Warp." Slip yawned. "We'll be fine."

* * *

**Also? This is officially a Shattered Glass fic now. Get excited.**


	5. Satan's Dodge Challenger

**A/N: Yay, officially SG. Also, Cliffjumper. I think I scared myself writing that.**

* * *

**Satan's Dodge Challenger**

Katie woke up, and was extremely surprised to notice that there was no sound of seven pilots mocking the eighth pilot's F-15 Active. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She blinked. Three times. Christ, her head was sore.

God curse her mother and her Irish wine.

Katie shook her head to clear it of the feeling of having a concrete block smashed against her head repeatedly, which was about as effective as TC's swimming in a ball pit; that is, not at all.

She dragged herself through to the living room, and accidentally tripped over a plate with a note stuck to it along with about twelve of Star's Cookies.

_HAI KT, _the note read, _SRY WE GOT CALLED OUT ON IMPRTNT STUFF. U NO NEEDED ON AWACS, K? CALL ON WORK FONE IF PRBLM. ENJY COOKES ALSO HANGOVER XP. LUV SKY._

Oh. That explained a lot. Katie picked up herself and the plate and wandered through to her room.

* * *

Having both dressed herself sort of and taken two aspirin tablets, Katie had a quick breakfast of cookies and whatever was left under the Shamrock Hat, which turned out to be a bottle of diluting orange juice she got from a 7/11 the week before and some tonic water.

She checked her watch, sighed, and got her coat from the hall. She should probably accomplish something today, and restocking the fridge sounded like a good idea.

Katie managed to walk all the way to the corner shop beside the canal before she remembered that she needed money to buy things, and that she did not have any money with which to buy things on her at the moment. She slapped herself on the forehead, and span on her heel, and that was when she saw the car.

It was a Dodge. A red Dodge Challenger SRT8, with stupid looking bull horns on the bonnet and a custom numberplate which she didn't bother reading, because she was caught up by the fact that it was _following _her.

Oh, and _no-one was fucking driving it! _

Katie did a quick circuit round the block just to make sure it was following _her _in particular. It was.

She officially started panicking, but calmed herself outwardly and wandered down into the dried-up canal, looking for all the world like she was just out for a stroll. The Challenger followed her, its engine growling menacingly.

Katie took out her "work phone" (i.e. a phone that TC had given her which let her call them when they were in their planes. She didn't know _why _TC had given her it, but she wasn't going to question a guy who knew as much about planes as he did.) and hastily dialled the first number on the contacts list, which turned out to be Sky.

"Katie?" Sky's voice said. "What's up? Why are you calling me?"

"Because I've got a really terrifying freaking problem, Sky!" she whispered into the phone. "Satan's Dodge Challenger! It's _stalking _me!"

"Whoa, whoa. Back up."

"No! There is a car, Sky, a red Dodge Challenger, and it is _stalking _me, _all by itself!"_ Katie whispered as loudly as she dared to.

"What!?" Sky practically yelled, and Katie thought she heard the sound of a jet's engines cutting, then firing again after a short pause. "What's the licence plate say?!"

"Why the hell does it matter?!"

"Just humour me, okay!"

"Um, it says C-L-1-F-F-J-M-P-R."

"Scrap! Katie, listen to me. Run. Run as fast as you can. Hide. Where are you now?" Sky ordered.

"I'm in the old canal just next to the base, why do I have to hi-"

Sky hung up. Katie stuffed the phone in her pocket and started running. she saw an old water pipe sticking out of the wall that looked like it would be big enough for her to fit into, and climbed into it. She crouched in the pipe, breathing as softly as she could.

The Dodge roared down the slope of the canal, and drove past Katie's hiding place. It stopped. It reversed slightly.

Then things started getting _really _weird. The car started _talking._

"Helloooo, little fleshie! Come out, come out, wherever you areeee!" it crooned evilly. When no response was forthcoming, the car sneered "Oh well, I'll just have to find you _myself!_"

Then, Katie watched as the car _unfolded _into a huge, red _robot_ with glowing crimson eyes; sharp, curled _talons; _and two twisted horns on its head.

"Oh, oh, oh. Come out, squishie! Cliffjumper just wants to talk to you..." the robot leered. "The Seekers can't have you all to themselves, no, no, no, they can't."

The robot stalked closer to Katie's pipe. "Are you in _here?_ Oh, Cliffjumper doesn't think that's a very go-od hid-ing place, no, no, no!" it mocked in a sing-song voice.

Suddenly it was just outside, and she was pulled out and dropped on the ground. "Aha! There you are, little fleshling! You shouldn't have run away from Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper doesn't like it when you run away from him!"

The immense hand reached out towards her, and then Katie heard the sound of jet engines.

The robot heard them too. He also heard the music. He turned.

Someone was playing Bonnie Tyler. Someone was playing Katie's personal favourite song by Bonnie Tyler.

Someone in a black and purple F-15 Eagle was playing "Holding Out For A Hero" while flying at about three hundred miles an hour down the canal.

"Sky!" Katie shouted. The jet tipped a wing in acknowledgement.

The red robot raised his arm, which turned into some kind of gun, and shot a few purple laser blasts at Sky's jet, which rolled around them, and then it seemed to shimmer slightly, and then suddenly there were _four _of the black and purple F-15, each flickering in and out of being there.

Now, Katie didn't know a lot about jets, but she knew that _that _wasn't humanly possible.

The four Sky's jets all fired their machine guns, but instead of bullets, what came out was blue laser fire, which smacked into the red robot, one of them catching him in the eye.

The four jets became one again, and then Sky's jet shifted and...well, it _transformed _into a black and purple robot with wide sweeping wings on its back and noble, blue eyes.

Katie wondered whether Sky knew that his jet was actually a giant robot.

The Sky-jet-robot delivered a crushing punch to the red-Dodge-Challenger-robot (it was calling itself Cliffjumper, so Katie just went with that), sending it flying.

The Sky-jet-robot landed on his feet and slid about twenty metres towards Katie, and then the rest of Seeker Squadron dropped out of the sky and each fired a missile each into Cliffjumper's chest. The Dodge toppled over, and then the jet Katie recognised as callsign Slipstream _transformed _as well, except into a very female-looking robot with high heels and everything, and landed next to the Sky-jet-robot.

"Is Katie okay?" the female-looking robot asked in Slip's voice.

"Katie? You okay?" the Sky-jet-robot addressed Katie in Sky's voice.

"You're...you're all the...the Seekers!" Katie exclaimed.

"Yeah. Kinda." the Sky-jet-robot said, looking sheepish. "Um...are you up for a little flying while we explain?"

Katie looked up and smiled at the robots. "I guess you did just save my life, so I think I owe you that much."

The Sky-jet-robot transformed back into his plane mode. "Hop in." it said, opening its cockpit.

Katie climbed in and strapped herself in.

Then, suddenly, the canopy shut and the jet took off. Katie screamed.

"Chill! Katie, calm down!" the Sky-jet-robot told her.

"How am I breathing!?" Katie asked in a panic.

"Pressurised interior. Relax, you're safe with me."

TC's voice crackled over the Sky-jet-robot's radio. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that, 'Warp."

"TC? I guess you're a giant robot too?" Katie asked.

"I am. So is everyone else." TC responded.

"Oh, this is going to take _so _much explaining." Katie sighed, slumping back in her seat. "Where are you taking me, anyway?"

Star's voice came over the radio. "We are taking you to meet with Lord Megatron, Katie."

Katie gulped.


	6. Katie Meets The Decepticons

**A/N: Woo! Another bit of the Shattered Glass fic I am learning to love.**

**So, for the record - Megatron! He is Animated Megatron, because I'm not even gay and I think his voice is shmexy. And helicopters are awesome.  
Thunderblast! Kind of like a more flirty Elita One, because that's who she should have been...in Shattered Glass...if she was in it...oh, nevermind.  
Barricade! I had a genius idea to make HIM the mute one and Bumblebee the psychotic police car. Neat, right? It's neat.  
Soundwave! ERMAGERD, IT'S CYBERTRON/GALAXY FORCE/WHATEVER SOUNDWAVE! HE'S SO COOL :D. And Ravage is Shattered Ravage, who has a twitter account (I loled).  
****Shockwave?! Like a cross between Ratchet and Perceptor with a bit of Prowl thrown in!**

**Review and follow/favourite if you liked it! Show me you want more! **

* * *

**Katie Meets The Decepticons**

The Seekers flew in formation around Skywarp (and by extension, Katie) while the human alternated between hyperventilating and staring out of Skywarp's cockpit at the landscape passing beneath them.

Skywarp spoke up. "Sorry to interrupt your sightseeing, but I'm just going to warn you, we're about to lose some altitude."

"Uh, that's fine, Sky...warp." Katie said. "Sorry. I'm just still getting used to thinking of you as the plane and not the guy with the purple highlights."

"Don't worry about it. We don't mind, and we usually go by the nicknames anyway."

"So you're still Sky?"

"No, I'm 'Warp. TC is still TC; Star is still Star; Slip is still Slip. Dirge is...well, he's Dirge; Ramjet is 'Jet or Ram, whatever works; Sunstorm is Sunny, Sunshine, Sun, or Obsequious Scum; Thrust is just Thrust, same as Dirge." Skywarp informed Katie. He saw she was just getting more confused and added a sheepish "You'll get used to it."

The eight planes suddenly swept downwards towards a large mesa.

"Uh, Skywarp, you know we're going to crash into that rock?" Katie asked fearfully, pushing herself up away from the impending lump of sandstone.

"Nope!"

A large piece of the mesa suddenly folded upwards and the Seekers shot through and transformed (excepting Skywarp) landing in perfect formation in very Iron Man-esque poses.

Starscream sniffed, standing up. "Very good. But Sunstorm, you were five metres out of formation."

"I am trying, Starscream, but of course I could never hold a light to your magnificence." Sunstorm replied.

Skywarp flew past them and ejected a screaming Katie out of his cockpit, transformed, caught Katie gently in his giant metal hands, then landed in front of Starscream.

He opened his hands and peeked in. "You okay, KT?"

Katie shook her head, blinking. "Phew. Fine. Next time, a little warning?" she said breathlessly.

"Nah." Skywarp said, bending down and allowing Katie to jump off his hand and take a few juddering steps forward.

Starscream was looking around impatiently. "Where _is_ he? SOUNDWAVE!"

A tall, buff-looking (if that was possible for a robot), white mech poked his head around the corner. "_Hello, all you cats on the floor! That's Sir Soundwave to you, Stars, and who's the chick?" _Katie distinctly heard an autotuned voice which sounded like a combination between a Harlem DJ and Garrus Vakarian say.

"Soundwave, this is Katie. She was attacked by Cliffjumper earlier. Is Lord Megatron here?" Starscream asked the white robot.

"_Damn right. The boss is havin' a little jam session with Shockwave." _Soundwave replied enthusiastically, pointing.

Soundwave had a pair of big swept triangular wings on his back, and a yellow and red chestplate which looked like a tape deck. Katie's ATC-trained eyes picked out pieces of an F-117 Nighthawk on his arms and legs, and his head had a blue visor and a grey face mask which moved up and down when he talked.

He pressed a button on his shoulder and the tape deck part flipped open and a white cat-shaped robot bounded out.

"LOL WASSUP?" it said. "I'M RAVAGE, WAT'S UR NAME?"

"Uh, I'm Katie?" Katie told Ravage.

"HAI! U C ME WAVIN?"

"Uh...yeah?"

Ravage looked so unbelievably happy at this, said "XD LOLZ FINALLY! G2G ATM, C U L8R" and bounded back over to Soundwave who picked him up and deposited him back into the tape-deck part of his chest.

Skywarp shuddered. "Ravage's voice is like a form of audial torture, seriously."

"_Hey, speak for yourself, Space Cowboy." _Soundwave said. _"Let's go get in on the show upstairs. I think Megatron's wantin' some solo mix time with the newbie." _He turned and walked over to another part of the room (Katie recognised it as a military facility, but she couldn't guess what kind). Skywarp picked Katie up again and he and the rest of the Seekers followed.

A black and yellow robot was typing at a large green computer. He turned and cocked his head when he saw Katie in Skywarp's hand. He let out a series of questioning beeps and pointed.

"This is Katie, Barricade. She's the human we were pretending to stay with, you know, to keep our cover up." Slipstream explained.

Barricade made some understanding beeps.

"No, Cliffjumper didn't attack her, and she died." Ramjet informed him.

Barricade made an angry beep.

"No, we didn't see Goldbug at all. Sorry." Thundercracker replied.

"This is Barricade, Katie. His voicebox was damaged in a fight. Shockwave's had a fair go at fixing it, but beeps was all he could manage to pull off." Skywarp introduced Barricade formally. "He's our scout, best in the galaxy."

Barricade beeped chidingly and waved a finger.

"Sorry, I meant best in the entire universe." Skywarp corrected, and Barricade let out a few satisfied beeps.

"Um, who's Shockwave?" Katie asked. "He sounds important."

"Shockwave is our Science Officer." Starscream answered. "He is also our team's medic."

"Ah. So this is the Seekers' ward." another, more cultured, voice said. "You say she survived an encounter with Cliffjumper? Rather fascinating, these humans' resilience."

A large, navy blue robot with one huge green eye and a gun for a left arm walked over. He inspected Katie carefully.

"Excuse my impoliteness, Katherine Molly Holmes. My designation is Shockwave. I am the Decepticon Chief Medical and Scientific Officer. You are undamaged?"

Katie winced at the use of her full name. "I'm fine."

"Judging from my own studies of the human race, the phrase "I'm fine" can denote anything from complete contentedness to suicidal tendencies." Shockwave observed. "But scans show you have no structural damage, Katherine Molly Holmes. I expected much more, taking into account Skywarp's questionable flying prowess."

Skywarp put his hands on his hips. "Was that a dig at my skills? Because it sounded like a dig at my skills."

"It was whatever you choose it to be, Skywarp." Shockwave replied non-committally.

"_You ain't winnin' this dance-off, Skyguy." _Soundwave put in.

"I'd have to agree with Radiohead." Slipstream said.

"Oh yeah, me too." Dirge and Thrust added simultaneously.

"No, I think Skywarp could win." Ramjet disagreed.

"Indeed. I, for one, am in awe of Skywarp." Sunstorm declared.

"I don't care." Starscream huffed.

"TC?" Skywarp begged. "Come on, bro!"

"Nope, you're finished." TC replied laconically.

Barricade put in a few apologetic beeps and shook his head sadly.

"Decepticons!" a regal voice boomed. "Calm yourselves."

"Oh, come on, darling. It was just a friendly standoff between the bot with the gun for an arm and the volatile teleporter tech test subject." a feminine voice laughed.

A gigantic grey, black, and red robot with a large black gun mounted on his right arm walked into the room, accompanied by an equally large pink, purple and yellow female robot, with a purple and grey rocket launcher attached to her arm.

"Hail Lord Megatron and Lady Thunderblast!" Starscream and Shockwave clicked their heels and saluted.

Everyone else sort of waved and said things like "Hey, boss-es"; "What's up, Megatron, Thunderblast?"; "Beep-Beep-Boop-Wheee-Wooo"; and "_Damn right, the king is in". _

Slipstream fist-bumped the female robot and winked. "Thunderblast, how's it humming, femme?"

"Pretty good, Slipstream. You'd be surprised how enjoyable monitor duty is." Thunderblast replied.

Megatron rolled his eyes and tiredly pinched his brow. "I was told there was someone to meet me. Come forward, Ms Holmes." he said in his deep voice.

Skywarp placed Katie on the floor, and she walked up. Megatron bent down and crouched in front of her.

"I understand you were involved in an altercation with the Autobot, Cliffjumper."

Katie looked up into the cool blue eyes and gulped. "Well, I suppose. Skywarp saved me from the demonic Dodge Challenger who wanted to squash me, so yeah. I guess."

"Skywarp did well in that respect, I must say. We will have to discuss the problem about the Autobots knowing of your existence. However, firstly, you must have questions about us. Ask anything you wish." Megatron said, making an expansive hand gesture.

"Uh, first, what are you all? Secret military experiment?" Katie asked.

"No, we are not of this Earth. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron." Megatron answered.

"Aliens?!"

"To us, it is _you_ who are the aliens," the great grey mech chuckled, "but yes. I suppose we _are_ aliens."

"Why are you here?"

"Our home planet of Cybertron was devastated by civil war. It began, I must admit, after _I_ led a rebellion against the tyrannical Senate and their leader, Sentinel Prime. His successor, Optimus Prime, now leads the Autobots on Earth."

"Was Cliffjumper one of those Autobots?"

"Indeed. And, as I do not believe the Seekers sent him to the Well of All Sparks, we must assume he has reported that you are with us. You are in danger by mere association."

"What? - but I didn't even _know _I had alien robots living in my flat!" Katie protested.

"I apologise, but the Autobots are not up for negotiation. If you are to return to your home, you will need protection in case they decide you an asset and attempt to capture you."

"Well, that's just great. I've got another question, by the way."

"What is it?" Megatron asked.

"I need to know all of your names." Kate told him simply.

* * *

**Oh, and Knock Out lovers? I've got a present for you. Later.**


	7. Monitor Duty Rock

**A/N: For some reason this is the only thing I can write at the moment. Oh well.**

**Should be some Autobot action in the next chapter. Psychopathic Silverbolt, here we come! **

* * *

**Monitor Duty Rock/R&B/Dance/Pop/Classical/Rap/Trance/Folk**

The first thing Katie learned was that there were sixteen Decepticons on Earth.

The eight Seekers, obviously; the leaders, Megatron, who transformed into a big, twin-rotor helicopter – the rotors on stubby little wings - ("You will address him as Lord at _all_ times," Starscream admonished) and his ''consort'' Thunderblast, who transformed into a fashionably lilac tracked SAM battery with, Katie was amused to discover, decals which read "G1-RLP0W-3R" (You will address her as Lady at _all _times", Starscream admonished); Shockwave the Science Guy (Skywarp's name for the poor blue M142 Abrams tank) - Katie respectfully declined his request for blood, skin, hair, and saliva samples; Barricade the beeping scout who accompanied Katie and the eight Seekers' holoforms back to Apartment 221B in his 2014 Mustang Shelby GT500 vehicle mode, which Katie felt far too good about sitting in the front seat pretending to drive every day; Soundwave the communications officer ("Radiohead" to everyone bar Megatron); Knock Out, the team's ''official'' doctor, who transformed into a fabulous cherry red Jaguar XKR and had the demeanour of Louis Spence mixed with a panicky nurse mixed with James Bond; and Knock Out's medical auxiliary, Breakdown: a hulking blue Mastiff APC with a giant hammer in each arm, who was the result of someone taking every member of Earth, Wind & Fire then adding Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Marley, blending them together, and giving them basic medical training.

The second thing Katie learned was that all sixteen Decepticons liked Earth music a lot, and were also very good at getting it off the internet with their 500 core processors or whatever it was they had.

They each had a turn at monitor duty (i.e. sitting in front of the big green holoscreen and watching for things happening like energy spikes or whatever), and they each played their own personal tunes whenever they got control of the base's speakers. Fairly soon, Katie had worked out which music went with whom – excepting the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)", which was played at random intervals by everyone.

Megatron, who sat at the monitor and either sharpened/polished his giant broadswords, enjoyed Earth's classical music. His favourite was an obscure piece called (Soundwave looked it up for Katie) "Requiem for a Fury", a tune which was emotive in the extremes, made Katie imagine a huge battle taking place entirely in slow motion while the camera zoomed in on each individual happening, and should have been played in the film Titanic at least once.

Thunderblast kicked her sizeable heels up onto the desk, hi-fived Slipstream, gently fist-bumped Katie, and blasted Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" so loud that it was like extremely feminist thunder echoing through the base. Katie and Slipstream cheered while every male Decepticon on base grumbled but Katie had definitely caught Knock Out nodding his head in time to the music and singing along a few times.

Soundwave favoured Earth's dubstep movement, specifically a _very _bass-y song called "20% Cooler" by Ken Ashcorp. Katie herself was utterly terrified by the line which went something along the lines of "Twilight Sparkle up in the party". Soundwave seemed to like it, though, as he sat and wubbed his way through whatever assignment he had, occasionally opening a file which was just a picture of a blue and silver femme with door-wings and a battle-crown. (Skywarp advised not mentioning that in earshot of the white communications officer; which was everywhere.)

Barricade liked a lot of Take That and/or the component members of Take That for reasons which were never fully explained to Katie, especially Gary Barlow's "Since I Saw You Last". The Mustang would whistle and beep to himself in time to the words, while he snapped his fingers (he was the only one who could do that) and was especially alert for a police-spec Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 who was apparently called Goldbug and was his mortal enemy or something.

Shockwave was strangely into Stevie Wonder, and his personal favourite was "Superstitious", which could have been transcribed from a rant from Shockwave himself. The scientist's little head-mounted wings flapped enthusiastically in time to the music, and he was scarily good at the Wave.

Knock Out winked at everyone and played Maroon Five's "Moves Like Jagger". Which was awkward, especially when Skywarp, Barricade, and even Thunderblast (sometimes) habitually winked back. Breakdown, by contrast, had no qualms about pounding out "POWER" by Kanye West while he worked, and also had no issues with any of the language he looked up on the internet for the definitions, despite mentally scarring everyone else and causing Shockwave to have an extremely awkward conversation with Katie about what exactly would cause a human to interface with their carrier.

Starscream could play mean air guitar, and he had "Starlight" by Slash screaming from all the speakers. The song made Slipstream completely melt and actually snuggle up to him, which was an incredible departure from their regular back-and-forth verbal sniping, and scared Katie beyond belief.

Thundercracker tapped on the desk and was incredibly predictable, because he _always_ played AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" at max volume (Katie literally fell over when it got to the loud part the first time he played it) and headbanged enough to have Skywarp imitating him with a completely straight face, which was hilarious.

Skywarp himself listened to "Jerk It Out" by the Caesars, and sometimes warped around the base carrying a speaker to boost the noise. Everyone else seemed to like his choice of song, and he once managed to get backup singers comprised of Barricade, Sunstorm and Dirge before the end of his shift.

Ramjet said that no, he hated Earth music, yes, he was going to play Justin Bieber, and no, he was not lying. He didn't choose "Black Betty" by Ram Jam for the reason that the band didn't share his initials and half of his name and not because of Skywarp and Thundercracker's made-up lyrics (probably stolen directly from a Rayman game, Katie gathered).

Dirge, in his quest to make sure nothing could hurt him, only ever played "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats, as he originally misunderstood the title then decided he liked the music anyway. He also took the music's instructions literally, and didn't talk to anyone who didn't dance.

Thrust played "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi because, according to Skywarp, he had issues with being in a team of 8 almost identical Seekers and wanted to be somehow distinguishable. Also, it sounded epic as frag, in Thrust's own words.

Sunstorm did the dance from Saturday Night Fever while he put "Disco Inferno" on the speakers, although he did tell anyone who would listen that their music was just as important to him if not more. Unfortunately, Disco Inferno's unique lyrics led to yet another awkward conversation between Katie and Shockwave about why humans attempted to combust their offspring.

Slipstream, upholding the remarkably gothy image she had been projecting with varying degrees of success, listened to Orianthi's "Shut Up and Kiss Me", which led to no work getting done as Starscream took her up on the offer and Skywarp had to do the femme Seeker's shift.

So it was that Katie eventually had to have her own song playing. And she chose the Dropkick Murphys' "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" just because she liked it, and because it gave her an excuse to teach Slipstream and Thunderblast Irish dancing, to the amusement of both their respective significant others (i.e. Starscream and Megatron).

And then Skywarp, insufferable as he was, used the lyrics of Katie's song to announce they were going on a mission.


End file.
